BAN ON MAGIC MUSHROOM SALES CURBS DUTCH DRUG POLICY

The Dutch government will ban the sale of hallucinogenic
mushrooms, the justice ministry said yesterday, rolling back part of
the country's permissive drug policy after a number of incidents,
including the death of a teenager who had eaten them.

The ban will go into effect within months and does not need
parliamentary approval, Wim van der Weegen, a ministry spokesman,
said. Shops that continued to sell magic mushrooms would be closed.

Under the country's tolerance policy cannabis is technically illegal
but police do not prosecute people for possession of small amounts,
and it is sold openly in designated cafes. Possession of hard drugs
such as cocaine, LSD and ecstasy is illegal. Mushrooms will fall
somewhere in the middle. "We're not talking about a non-prosecution
policy, but we'll be targeting sellers," Mr Van der Weegen said.

Psilocybin, the main active chemical in the mushrooms, has been
illegal under international law since 1971. However, fresh,
unprocessed mushrooms continued to be sold legally in the Netherlands
on the basis that it was impossible to determine how much of the
naturally occurring substance any mushroom contained.

Mr Van der Weegen said that was also why the system proved unworkable.
"The problem with mushrooms is that their effect is unpredictable.
It's impossible to estimate what amount will have what effect."

Calls for a re-evaluation arose after Gaelle Caroff, 17, from France,
was killed by jumping from a building after eating psychedelic
mushrooms while on a school visit to Amsterdam in March. Her parents
blamed her death on hallucinations brought on by the mushrooms, though
she had had psychiatric problems.

Since Ms Caroff's death other cases have been reported in the Dutch
press. A British tourist, 22, ran amok in a hotel, breaking a window
and slicing his hand badly; an Icelandic tourist, 19, thought he was
being chased and jumped from a balcony, breaking both legs; and a
Danish tourist, 29, drove his car wildly through a campsite, narrowly
missing people sleeping in tents. Most mushrooms sold in Amsterdam are
sold to tourists.

After the health ministry launched a study, mushroom vendors suggested
stricter ID controls for buyers, and strong warnings against mixing
mushrooms with other drugs. But this week the health minister, Ab
Klink, said that merely tightening controls did not go far enough.

Murat Kucuksen, whose farm Procare supplies about half the mushrooms
on the Dutch market, said he stood to lose several million euros
invested in setting up his legal growing facilities. He predicted the
trade would move underground, prices would rise, and dealers would
sell dried mushrooms or LSD as a substitute, with no guidance for
tourists. "So you'll have a rise in incidents but they won't be
recorded as mushroom-related, and the politicians can declare
victory," he said.